Abstract
Dialogical egalitarianism is the thesis that any proposition asserted in dialogue, if questioned, must be supported or else retracted. Dialogical foundationalism is the thesis that some propositions are privileged over this burden of proof, standing in no need of support unless and until support for their negation is provided. I first discuss existing arguments for either thesis, dismissing each one of them. Absent a successful principled argument, I then examine which thesis it is pragmatically more advantageous to adopt in analytic philosophical dialogue. This requires identifying the goal of such dialogue, to the attainment of which the thesis would be so advantageous. To identify this goal, I draw on Douglas Walton’s typology of dialogues for an analysis of the types of dialogue of 110 representatively selected journal articles in current analytic philosophy. 95% of articles are found to instantiate persuasion dialogue. In light of the thus prevalent goal of persuading one’s opponent, I argue that the adoption of dialogical egalitarianism in analytic philosophical dialogue is pragmatically inescapable.
Highlights
Dialogical egalitarianism is the thesis that any proposition asserted in dialogue, if questioned, must be supported or else retracted
If you assert some putatively privileged proposition P, such as The sky is blue by day, and another party to the dialogue questions whether P, you are required to defend your commitment to P under dialogical egalitarianism but not under dialogical foundationalism
Dialogical foundationalism affirms and dialogical egalitarianism rejects the existence of privileged propositions and of the resultant uneven distribution of the burden of proof
Summary
Any proposition asserted in dialogue, if questioned, must be supported or else retracted. the burden of proof for any asserted and questioned proposition lies upon the asserting party. If we assume that M may be any proposition affirming the evidential value of common sense, intuitions, thought experiments or another a priori source of evidence, Chisholm, Bealer and Williamson in effect claim that M is dialogically privileged This privileged status of M appears to be implicitly presumed in substantive philosophical debates relying on some or all of these putative sources of evidence. It is compatible with dialogical foundationalism, which permits treating M as privileged by not placing the burden of proof for M upon the party that asserts or continually accepts M but instead placing the burden of proof for :M upon any party that denies or even just questions M In their substantive debates, so it seems, most philosophers take M to be privileged, seeing as they continue their employment of the sources of evidence sanctioned by M regardless of recent challenges to M.
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